Transplanting Winter Sown Broccoli

Little broccoli plants. They are so much stronger and healthier than I thought they would be. Winter sowing sure makes strong little plants.

Transplanted broccoli plants. So happy.

Started First Seeds Inside

Started peppers (red cheese, early jalepeno, peter pepper), mexican gherkins, sweet william, some other flower I can't remember, and luffah's. Yeah! Will try to get some pics of the garden soon.

Winter Sowing - My New Project

So, this is my new project, winter sowing. The seeds are supposed to start germinating when they are ready to, when it is warm enough for them. Takes a lot of work and space I need for other crops out of it. Thanks Jen for the milk jugs. Would love more when you have them. ;-)

So first you find a reciptical for said winter sowing project. There are a lot of different things you can use for this. These are the only thing I have access to so milk jugs it is. Cut around the milk jug being careful to leave one of the labels intact so its easier to close. Poke 6-8 holes in the bottom with a sharp knife. Load up with a couple inches of dirt. I use PVFS potting soil and perlite mixed in. Water. Then plant your seeds.

Label receptical with duct tape on the bottom so the sun doesn't bleach it.

Tape where you cut the milk jug and leave it outside. Water if needed depending on how wet your climate is. It's not supposed to rain here for awhile so I will have to keep an eye on them.

Backyard Garden in the Winter

It still looks really good. So left to right in the back is strawberries, bright lights swiss chard, and artichokes in there half wine barrels. In the front left to right is rosemary, spearmint, chocolate mint, pineapple mint with coconut geranium on top, rhubarb with columbine in sm. pot on top.
I was hoping the artichokes would go a little more dormant so that I could transplant them in the new garden in the next month. Not sure what to do about that.
The swiss chard I have had since last Spring. I think it was supposed to bolt during the heat. Guess not.

Close-up of the left side.

Close-up of the right side.

Rhubarb is trying to come back already too, another plant I wanted to put in the new garden. Go dormant please!

New Garden Getting There

Looking good so far. Need to get the back half done, but working on it. 4ft rows with 3ft paths in between. You can tell the rows with compost mixed in and cover crop seeds on top. I thought the last rain would start them sprouting, but most didn't. Hopefully the next rain will start them germinating. James has been a trooper with it all. He went twice with me today and I got 3 ditches in the paths put in so we can get good drainage so my compost doesn't wash away or have big wash outs or something. James found lots of worms. Good for the ground and a good distraction for James. Poor worms though, most don't make after being manhandled by James. Oh well, seems like there are lots of them. Yeah!

My Little Gardener Learning How To Save Seeds

Saving Okra seeds.

Being silly while saving seeds. It can't all be that boring.

New Garden Patch

Here is what we started with. 1/2 acre of grass and a 13 horsepower tiller. My friend Paul showed me this post on craigslist about someone in Carmichael that needed someone to garden thier backyard. How lucky am I to have such a good friend keeping an eye out for me. If you see this post Paul, Thanks! The garden is just a couple blocks away from our house. So, for the next 5 years this will be our garden. Yippee!

Mostly tilled.

Almost done. This was at 5 O'clock. Rog finished tilling at 5:30. We did it! Thanks Rog, your the best! Now to make rows so that it will drain properly when it rains next. I saw some worms when I was digging around too. Yeah! This is so exciting! I need to transplant strawberry plants and plant some garlic. Yum!

Pineapple Tomato

So, this is the only tomato I got besides the sungold cherry tomatoes. It's a pineapple tomato. It was green when I picked it and I put it in a bag like my friend Paul recommended. And it worked. Probably doesn't taste as good as it would right off the vine, but I will take what I can get after my soil disaster with my transplant tomatoes this year. Really don't buy Edna's Best Organic soil. It's expensive and its not as good as Peaceful Valley Farm Supplies'.

Isn't it pretty?

Yum!

Paul's a.k.a. Sacratomato's Garden I

James and I met up with one of my local garden internet buddies to take some pictures for him for a couple of idig contests. He had an awesome garden.

Here is his gate upon entering his garden.

Yummy korean watermelon.

A second melon. Beautiful.

Ambrosia cantelope. He let us take it home. Mmmmm.....

Paul's a.k.a. Sacratomato's Garden

Paul's big monster pumpkin James got to pose on. It's over 80 inches around.

Proof you don't have to have a lot of room to grow big pumpkins.

Huge watermelon Paul is letting go to save seeds from.

Smaller watermelon of same variety. I forgot to take a pic of the whole plant. It was huge.

How do you know when a pumpkin has had too much to drink????

My friend sent me this and I thought I'd share it with everyone. I thought it was hilarious.

Garden as of 10/07 and Okra

Here is the big plot in all its glory. It is pretty green. Just took out that front right tomato plant, but everything else will stay until it goes to seed or dies. The half plot we have is just dying pumpkin plants I need to pull out. Will work on that tomorrow or Thursday.
My huge okra. It went crazy this year. Letting a few pods get huge and dry so that I can harvest the seeds.

Luffah's, Luffah's, Everywhere Luffah's

Luffah gourd plant taking over the tepee and the bean trellis. You can see a smaller loofah hanging in the middle.
James and a loofah.
Pretty loofah flowers.
One big loofah. That is our biggest loofah yet.

Tomatoes

Finally one big tomato on the vine. Maybe, just maybe it will ripen on the vine. We'll see. May have to ripen on the counter. From my garden map this is supposed to be a Pineapple tomato.
One sad San Marzano tomato. I don't think it will get full size. Such a shame I had such aspirations for this variety. Will try again next year.
I pulled out my Sungold tomato plant. Look how long the roots are. Amazing!

Sorry its been so long - update on garden.

Sorry its been so long since my last post. Here is James and most of our pumpkin harvest. 4 cinderella pumpkins, 9 Musquee de Provence, and 4 batwing pumpkins. This is all from my half plot which is amazing! It's definately a pumpkin year for us. The batwings which are next to James' hand didn't turn out like they said they would lest I picked them too late, maybe they were darker and turned more orange over time, I don't know. They are supposed to be black on the bottom and orange on the top. Here is a pic of what they are supposed to look like. Oh well. It's supposed to rain this weekend, that is what has prompted me to pick all my pumpkins and squash except for the luffahs, which are just starting to produce. They say they need a long growing season and now I believe it. They didn't start producing until a couple of weeks ago, but they grow fast. Hopefully I will remember to get a picture of them soon. They are taking over the tepee and the bean trellis. They are pretty though. Constantly in bloom.
Here are my New England Pie pumpkins. They will be yummy! Oh, and final thought on direct seed vs. transplant are quite telling. The transplant for the new england pie was a smaller plant and produced only one pumpkin while the direct seeded plant was 3 times the size of the transplant and grew 4 pumpkins. So, next year I will be direct seeding most of my pumpkins and squash and I will start the loofah gourds and Mexican Sour Gherkins inside sooner than I did this year.
Here are my butternuts. There are 3-4 more on the vine still growing too. This is from one plant. Quite prolific. I can't wait to eat one. Will wait until the green goes away on them. They keep forever (atleast until about March), so we have some time before we dig in, well except for the one the stem broke off.